


Oath and Execution

by eldritchbee



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Girls, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Manipulation, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Suicidal Thoughts, Violent Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2019-02-23 07:15:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13185036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eldritchbee/pseuds/eldritchbee
Summary: Magical Girls AU. After Joffrey cuts off her father's head, a strange creature shows up in her window and asks her if she wants to make a contract.Miles away, Arya gets the same offer.They both take it.





	1. like a lady in a song

**Author's Note:**

> An old AU I'm very proud of, it has its own tag on my tumblr. I call it [Sansa Magica](http://yuiikari.co.vu/tagged/sansa-magica). That link has all my background info on the AU too.
> 
> I even made a [fanmix](https://8tracks.com/beelala/oath-and-execution-sansa-magica) for it on 8tracks way back when.

The creature comes to her some time later, after hours of screaming and sobbing and digging her nails in her pillow to keep from tearing at her hair. The creature comes much later, she knows because when she last looked the sky was bright, and when she lifts her head now only the moon shines. The creature stands on her balcony railing, a spot she teetered on just hours earlier, and glows white fur and red eyes against the moonlight.

It says, “Hello,” and because it speaks without moving its mouth she thinks herself in a dream. But her pillow is still damp from tears and drool and snot, her hair is a mess and she only wears a shift, her eyes and her head still feel heavy but when she blinks and nods the vision of Ice flashing down causes her to jolt back up.

(She hoped this wasn’t a dream, she hoped she’d feel better there. That she’d forget twitching legs and–)

“It’s rude to stare,” it says again, thinks again and projects those thoughts into her mind.

Sansa fumbles, she’d thought her courtesies gone when she glowered cruelly at the knights who escorted her back to her room and slammed the door with a heavy sob and not a thank you in sight. Surely, half of her wants to thump back down, scream and throw something at the railing, dive after it or snap a naughty word its way in hopes she could repulse it into leaving. But habits are hard to break, and further the thing throws her off with its looks and way of speaking. She mutters, “Sorry,” and then she follows up with, “Hello.” But, for added measure, tacks on a, “Could you please leave me alone right now,” that halfway through gets choked up in her throat causing the rest to come out a sob.

It doesn’t leave her.

She turns her head away into the pillow, ready to wither and die in this very spot, and in a beat feels the pressure of the creature hopping into the bed next to her.   _Cruel_ , she thinks. “I have a bargain I’d like to strike with you, Lady Stark.”

Her fingers tighten around one of her pillows, and she feels brief rage boil up under her melancholy. She didn’t know how long it would be until Ser Ilyn and the King came for her head as well, she would like to mourn in peace. In quiet. “Leave!” she snaps, and attempts to swat the thing off the bed with her pillow. ( _Cruel_ , she thinks, and believes if it was just a normal small animal she wouldn’t have done so. If it was Lady she wouldn’t have done so. But it spoke and heard and didn’t listen so she was certainly justified in rage.)

She misses, or it dodges. It laughs, landing on her headboard and she finds herself face to face with it. The eyes glow even in the dark of her room, and cause her to recoil. “What–?” and her voice comes out pleading for mercy. A softer version of the scream she’d sounded when the King called for her father’s head.

“You have something special, Lady Stark. Special for a noble girl. What if I told you that, in exchange for a price, I could grant you any one wish.”

“What?” she says again, wiping her face of her stale tears. “ _Any_  wish?”

“To a point.”

Even in this state (especially in this state, where she longed for her childhood home) she could remember Old Nan’s tales. Wishes with catches that no human could imagine. “Why? Why would you, and who? And—and what’s the price?” It looked nothing like the fairies described to her, but she knew they came to maidens with pure hearts to heal their souls. There was the story of the poor girl who begged the gods to release her from her brutal brothers and their demands, and the gods turned her into a tree where she was forever happy (a weirwood, she always imagined,  _white and red_ ). “You’re not going to turn me into a tree, are you?”

“Ridiculous, not unless that’s your wish. Sounds like a waste though, doesn’t it?” (She squinted hard, tried to see if its mouth really didn’t move, not even a hair.) “Call me Kyubei, I collect the energy that comes from wishes to help fight evil. Witches, demons, grumpkins,  _bad things_ like despair _,_ you know? Certainly you know despair.”

(It didn’t talk like a fairy.)

“You can fight despair though. The catch is you fight, I give you the power to fight. It’s an oath you’ll have to take. Fight for me, be my hero, my magical knight, and I’ll give you any one thing you ask. ”

She thinks there might be a catch. Something awful she’s missing. (Fighting monsters, though, she never imagined herself anything more than the lady in the song being rescued by the knights. But she’s seen the knights in King’s Landing, and the Princes and the Kings and the Queens. They did nothing for her father, no one lifted a finger for him, could she hope they would do anything for her? The traitor’s daughter? While the King loomed over them all, smiling cruelly at her like he did hours ago?  _Witches demons grumpkins despair_.

This was a place that needed a true knight, after all.)

(Loras Tyrell would be best, she supposed, but he was gone and—

Well.

The most important thing first.)

“If my wish were to bring someone back to life, someone who’s head had been chopped off and is already long dead. If I wanted to wish for someone alive… and  _safe_ , in a place where I can find him. Could you do that?”

For a second, half a heartbreaking second, there was no answer. She thought it impossible; life truly was not like a song.

 But the creature’s mouth stretched, long and wide into what you could only call a grin, and a shiver ran up her neck.

“Oh, is that  _all_?” he asked.

And so Sansa Stark prepared to take her oath.


	2. wolf child, blood child

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I only wrote two parts to this Way Back When, but I'm leaving this open in case I wanna add more ever.

“I could grant you any one wish… to a point… the catch is that you fight… be my hero, my magical knight…”

_but can you bring back a dead man?_

_a dead man who’s lost his head?_

“Oh. Is that all?”

***

It’s funny; Sansa had always imagined oath taking to be less… shakey. She supposed it was because she wasn’t brought up to be a knight, a warrior, for whom these things should be second nature as taking a lady’s favor to fight. But, that was the only doubt in her mind about the words she spoke. She wasn’t brought up for this, she would learn; after all despite the shake in her voice as she pieced the perfect wish together she held no hesitation. No fear for her choice. What could this creature do to her that would beat the betrayal of Joffrey and the queen?

”My father is Eddard Stark Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North; my wish is for him to be alive. In one piece, head firmly on his shoulders, and in a safe place to where I can reach him.”

And after that, light. Blinding light, like staring at a landscape of snow. She felt a tug at her chest, like something had reached in and pulled gently on her heart, and then nothing. And then the bed where she’d been weeping. A gem pressed into her throat, warm and pulsing. Different clothes, not the thin sleeping gown she’d had on before but soft cloths and flexible armor and boots. The skirt was jagged, cut into spikes, but she did not feel the cold of the draft. She considered it briefly, an afterthought before noticing the empty room. “What now? Where’s my father?”

“Find him.”

“How? The guards may be—”

“Then choose a different route. Try the window.”

Her stomach seized, remembering earlier, hours or days when she stood outside and considered which way to jump and leave behind a beautiful corpse to shame Joffrey’s cruelties. I am different now, she thought, I have been born again, and I will think of him no more. She was stronger, she could feel it. At least, she was stronger physically, and it allowed her at least an illusion of confidence for the moment. Without another thought of the weeping girl she had been before the creature came to her aid, Sansa pushed herself off the railing and dropped to the ground below, alive and unafraid.

***

Far, but not too far. Close, but not too close.

Another girl stood outside in ratted clothes and newly sheared hair, pretending she was a boy to protect herself. Release herself from this city and never look back. And pretend it was burning behind her. She had not wept since the day she had been dragged away from the Baelor, trying to reach the sister and father that needed her. She couldn’t sleep; she was too angry and scared to even think of it.

When the creature appeared in front of this girl, this  _Arry_ , Arya Stark, she reacted with fear and anger.

Needle was out fast, and she stabbed out at it, too slowly.

“Gentle, girl. I am only here to help.”

“What are you?”

“A granter of wishes. Whatever you choose.” Hearing this Arya Stark laughed and spat in the creature’s general direction.

“I don’t trust you.”

It didn’t seem to be affected at all by this, nor did it care about Arya trying to attack again beyond jumping out of the way. “My, you’re a wild one. But not as brave as you’re trying to show off. I can make you brave though. I can make you stronger than you ever imagined, so that next time you can cut through a crowd if need be.”

She struck again.

And again it jumped away, and emitted a hollow laugh that sunk her heart into her stomach. She tried hard not to scream, to wake everyone up or show the thing it was right. It laughed again, and she covered up her fear with more anger, as much as she could muster. 

“Well fine! Bring my father back if you’re so strong! Bring him back and bring me home!”

“Oh? I’m sorry. Your father’s already alive. I’m afraid your sister already stole that wish, but I can send you home if that’s what you—”

Arya froze. “Sansa?” The last she’d heard of Sansa, the girl was screaming. It sunk her heart deeper to remember.

“Yes. She took her oath just before I came to you. Anyway, do you really wish to go home?”

The creature, she knew, could be lying. Could be stirring around in Arya’s emotions trying to trick her into something stupid. She didn’t love stories like Sansa and Bran, especially not dumb fantasies with grumpkins and fairies and giants whose eyes held the world, but she’d listened to her fair share of them anyway. Old Nan had allowed a schedule, one day Bran gets his favorites, then Sansa, then Arya, and they all had to suffer through the others to get to their own. So she knew, things like this, things that were clearly magic were  _dangerous_  and  _wrong_. You don’t touch magic like that, wishes that bring back dead men, it’s dark. It does bad things to people. It fools you and takes advantage and holds you hostage.

But, Arya Stark had already shivered on the streets, eaten pigeons and felt the panic of having to conceal herself from everyone. There was an anger stirring inside her, and it was dark. If their father lived, was it really that awful? If everyone out of her reach could be punished for what they’d done to her, did it really matter?

“Prove it,” she said.

“Hold out your hand.”

And she did. Felt the creature’s tiny paw in her hand. And then felt blinding pain in her head, as a vision stabbed through her. Sansa, in some weird dress that she would never really wear. Sansa, finding their father among discarded bodies, looking weak and sick and tired and scared and shocked. Sansa, explaining in clipped words,  _“you’re alive now” “I made an oath” “its magic father” “later, I’ll tell you later”_. Stomping, yelling, the sound of swords being unsheathed and both Sansa and father looking up in shock. Terrified. Confused.

“I didn’t explain everything to her yet. She was in such a rush, and I knew she would be preoccupied later. But, if she dies early I won’t need to,” Arya wanted to ring the creature’s neck, the casual, uncaring way he spoke about her sister trying to get away from the guards that had caught them. She found herself swearing, trying to force her way out of the vision and to the real world so she could snatch the creature up and kill it.

“If someone to help her though, they could get out of that mess. Easy. And then I could explain everything to both of them.”

She felt her heart fighting itself. A rational side screaming that this was dark magic, the creature could be lying,  _don’t trust it! Don’t!_  And then the emotional side whispering the words “strong strong strong” and a group of names, all which she could pay back with this strength. It won her rational side over by presenting the most important case at hand: even if she was being tricked, there was no way the vision wasn’t real. The realness of it was the most important part of it, it served as motivation.

“Any wish?” Arya said, gritting her teeth. “For your oath?”

Somehow, the creature’s smile looked even brighter that moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> click [here](http://yuiikari.co.vu/post/72634410605/ok-here-we-go-sansa-and-aryas-magical-girl) for some idk stats on Sansa & Arya's magical girl / witch themes and stuff

**Author's Note:**

> originally written january 8, 2014


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